independent film reviews

Noise: a genre that is difficult for the average person to appreciate. However, when one sees its creation firsthand or creates it oneself, noise becomes a type of musical art that takes on its own appeal and meaning. In People Who Do Noise, noise becomes associated with faces, through interviews with dozens of Portland noise musicians. The documentary gives viewers who might be unfamiliar with the controversial genre a deeper look.

At its basest, noise is a genre that comes about through the manipulation of various instruments — often homemade — with sounds that range from dirty squeals and ambient drones to robotic pulses, and everything in-between. It can be carefully controlled, or it can be a form that takes on its own life, with very little human input, through the use of electronics.

When discussed, noise can be hard to quantify with words. But listening to noise musicians discuss the creation of their art actually yields surprisingly deep discussions. Some compare the act of creating noise like working within an electronic circuit or closed environment. Others create noise because it is a reminder of an impending apocalypse to come. Still others enjoy it because it’s a type of music that’s easily accessible to all who are curious. The reasons and inspirations for creating noise are vast, but always interesting; for while some pop musicians might say, “I really like to write fun songs that make people dance,” noise musicians talk about noise music in a way that’s similar to physicists talking about physics.

All of the Portland noise musicians in People Who Do Noise — from Smegma to Yellow Swans to god to Argumentix — approach their craft with a seriousness and earnestness that one can’t help but appreciate, even if one doesn’t necessarily appreciate the music itself. Nonetheless, noise musicians can also see the ridiculousness in their craft, when viewed from the outside.

Musician Sisprum Vish gave an anecdote about his childhood which serves as a pretty solid example as to why people become interested in noise. He recalled being a young child who would record cartoons and slow them down because the resulting sound was appealing, and it is this kind of curiosity that is necessary for creating noise. It’s a genre for those who like to tinker endlessly — for who like to build and invent and experiment.

“I think my work is fueled almost completely by what happens when you do something wrong,” reveals musician Redglaer. “Feedback is the wrong thing, but that’s almost at the heart of my work and of a lot of people’s work.”

Utilizing amazing sound mixing and a strong balance of interviews and performances, People Who Do Noise is a good introduction for those who know nothing about noise, as well as an appropriate portrait of noise musicians for those who are already interested.

Like any other self-respecting genre, noise isn’t for everyone. However, it is created by people who find amusement in their craft. And although the amusement to be found in creating noise might come from engineering strange instruments or going against the musical grain as opposed to gaining fans and touring extensively, it doesn’t make the genre any less important.

An artist’s dream is that work he/she leaves behind will outlast their lifetime — that he/she will make a permanent mark on the annals of human history. Ultimately, the result is much more important than the person behind it, but in many cases, the artist becomes larger than the art itself, obscuring their legacy and leaving them forgotten, lost in a wind of ego and fame.

Ondi Timoner’s documentary, We Live In Public, is, ostensibly, about Josh Harris, the tragic and misunderstood dot-com multi-millionaire with an uncanny eye for the future. His ideas about technology, the flow of information, and the basic human need for exposure made him millions of dollars at the dawn of the World Wide Web. But his underlying psychosis, his fame-whorish attitude, and his penchant for throwing millions of dollars at his eccentric “artistic projects” led to his bankruptcy at the end of the ‘90s.

His largest and most successful artistic endeavor was the titular project – Quiet: We Live In Public, in which more than 100 of New York’s bohemia were picked to live in a bunker-style capsule hotel where the rights of privacy did not exist. Josh Harris plays the deity figure, providing everything: free food, bathing areas, a church, uniforms, and much more. At first, the people involved are excited to be there, living in an artist’s utopia and relishing the ability to enter into their neighbors’ private worlds with the touch of a remote. But as things go on, as Mr. Harris starts to add grueling psychological torture to the experiment, and as the inhabitants fight for every shred of dignity and privacy they believe they deserve, things break down quickly and the commune is ultimately dissolved by the police.

Ms. Timoner experienced this astounding experiment firsthand as a resident of Quiet, and was right to document what ended up being one of the most eerily foreshadowing ideas ever crafted during the dotcom era. With the rise of reality television and the advent of YouTube, we all live in an extended version of Quiet, only now the relinquishing of our privacy is not forced upon us, but rather, we readily give it away in exchange for so-called fame (granted, the destruction of Quiet may have been more of a result from Mr. Harris’s fascist tactics and torture than anything having to do with round-the-clock exposure).

And that is where the message is somewhat muddled. Josh Harris’ own eccentricities are his own undoing, and the movie makes great effort to point that out. It is his boredom with his own creations that causes him to sabotage his projects, sometimes deliberately. After the end of Quiet, Mr. Harris’ next endeavor was the first proto-YouTube channel, in which he and his girlfriend lived together in an apartment televised 24/7. No fascist overtones, no space church — just living happily and being broadcasted over the internet with a chatroom for interactions. Rather than being revelatory, though, this project ends up being a depressing window into a man who is transparent in most of his actions… a man who has great ideas on paper, but cannot overcome his own shortcomings to actually execute anything worthwhile.

Review by Allen Huang.

Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band are set to release “One of My Kind” on April 15th, a documentary that will give fans a behind-the-scenes look at the band’s journey over the past year and a half. Made by the band’s guitar-tech Phil Schaffart and presented by Causecast, “One of My Kind” traces the group’s ever-growing bond as friends and collaborators. Footage from Tepoztlan, Mexico, where they recorded their first album, Conor Oberst, their worldwide tour in 2008, and the making of Outer South in El Paso, TX takes viewers on a 60-minute musical journey around the world.

The film will be available as a free stream or HD download exclusively on Causecast.org, IFC.com, conoroberst.com, mergerecords.com, and wichita-recordings.com. Additionally, Causecast.org partner sites IFC.com, The Huffington Post and Myspace IMPACT will each feature exclusive outtakes, trailers and live acoustic performances from the film.

Unlike any film release before, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band are donating the documentary, “One Of My Kind” for FREE, in the hope that viewers will make a donation to one of the many nonprofits or causes on Causecast.

They are also now on tour.

Recently, I had an experience with a friend who basically attributed a huge amount of today’s electronic music and electronic music hybrids to the well-known artist, Aphex Twin. Aphex Twin started his career in the early ’90s, and while he has been extremely, extremely influential in the emergence of and style of contemporary electronic music, there’s one person who is perhaps just as significant, yet does not get enough credit for his contributions.

That person is the Canadian-born Bruce Haack.

Prior to receiving one of Haack’s albums and this documentary in the mail, I had never, ever heard of Haack. A musician who was trained at Julliard, Haack primarily created music for children’s television shows and advertisements, but his personal creations were highly experimental and very much in line with what many bands electro-pop and electronica bands are trying to do today. For example, some of the tracks he did for his Columbia Records’ Electric Lucifer release in 1970, featuring digitized vocals and chiming backgrounds, could very much have contributed to the style of modern bands like Daft Punk. Haack’s reach was extraordinary, and his rejection of standard rules led him to be a pretty inventive musician who was making music no one else was making at the time.

The fact of the matter is that Haack got his start in the ’50s, and was rather well-known throughout the ’60s and beyond. He even appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and made regular appearances on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, playing a crazy character as well as demonstrating how to use synthesizers.

Haack created many instruments on his own, including homemade analog synthesizers, guitar effects pedals, theremin-inspired magic wands, and Dermatrons, which were similar to theremins, only played on foreheads of humans, using the natural conductivity of the human body (hence, the “derma” in its name). Haack was no doubt a very creative and inventive individual, and it’s important that his story is told and his significance known.

Perhaps Haack’s influence in music is not exactly quantifiable, as most modern electronic musicians do not know about Haack at all. But the ones who do actually know about Haack — such as the members of bands like Eels, Mouse on Mars, and Beastie boys, which are featured in the documentary — revere Haack wholeheartedly. One even stated that he had no doubt he’d have grown up a lot better if he had known about Haack’s music earlier.

Haack: The King of Techno features some interesting archival footage from the ’50s and ’60s, but it is a bit weak on the interview side. It takes interviews from a lot of individuals with nothing particularly enlightening to say, or those who say things without much conviction. Despite well-crafted transitions involving the music of Bruce Haack and black-and-white abstract imagery, the interviews cause some amount of lag in-between compelling footage, making the documentary frankly a bit more boring than it could have been.

Haack’s contributions to chidren’s music are still present in teaching circles today, but for the large part, he remains an unknown individual. I highly recommend that anyone interested in electronic music or instrumentation view this documentary, because it will leave you with a feeling of awe and surprise. Someone as influential as Bruce Haack was in his own time should not completely disappear into history; his story should be spread and told, and this documentary is a start to that.

www.haackmovie.com

Purchase the Dimension Mix, a tribute to Bruce Haack featuring contributions by artists like Beck and Stereolab, and help support children with autism. - www.dimensionmix.com

While female musicians are represented a fair amount in Redefine’s reviews and interviews, I have noticed, over time, that the majority of bands and musicians we cover are in fact male. The number of female rock musicians has certainly increased through the years, but the industry is still largely male-dominated.

Girls Rock! takes a look at this issue by documenting an annual all-girls rock n’ roll in Portland. With over 60 volunteer counselors and staff, including well-known musicians like Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney and Beth Ditto from The Gossip, the camp helps young girls aged 8 to 18 build confidence in their songwriting skills, in their instrumental skills, and most importantly, in themselves. Girls are split up into groups according to the type of music they want to write, and then form their own bands. They work for multiple days with their bands to create songs, which they ultimately perform at a concert at the end of the camp. The skills of the girls vary from those who are very acquainted with instruments to those who have never picked up an instrument in their lives.

In the documentary, the filmmakers choose to follow five different girls closely. They vary in age, but all of them are afflicted with some sort of problem – be it related to anxiety, health, or rough pasts — that makes it difficult for them to truly pursue music or to believe in themselves. Girls Rock! shifts back and forth between clean-cut camp fun, camp drama, historical facts, and punk-inspired intermissions that deal with many of the issues which plague young women today, including, but not limited to, body image, lack of confidence, and sexism.

While the documentary holds strongly to feminist ideals, it never becomes overly preachy, simply because it relies on testimonials from real girls. The film is an honest look into the lives of young women undergoing transition, with stories which are sometimes heart-breaking and sometimes heart-warming.

The DVD itself has a lot to offer as well, including follow-ups with the girls who were featured in the movie. All of them spoke highly of their experience in camp, and all of them attested to the fact that camp helped them become more comfortable with themselves. Also included in the Special Features are interviews with members of Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, and The Gossip, as well as tutorials in all things DIY, from self-defense to zines.

www.girlsrockdvd.com

My first, and probably only, cruise experience was two months ago. It sailed through the Northern European Baltic Sea countries, like Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia, and it epitomized all that I hate about traveling: gluttony, closemindedness, and lack of desire to really get to know other countries. To make it worse, I was one of less than a dozen people under 40 on the entire cruise (workers not included, of course). It was a harrowing experience in where I thought I was the only one like me on the entire ship. No one seemed to share my interest. I wanted off.

Apparently, Angel Sil, Goth Cruise founder, felt just like I did. She and other goths wanted the luxuries of going on cruises but didn’t want to feel singled out. They didn’t want to be the only ones with piercings, black clothes, or dyed hair, in a setting crammed with strangers they could not escape from.

2007 was the 4th annual Goth Cruise, in which 150 goths boarded a cruise from New Jersey to Bermuda and shared the cruising experience with 2,500 “norm” individuals. Goth Cruise documents this experience, following separate individuals on the cruise, such as “The Veteran Goth,” a 50 year old dad of two and “The Secret Vamp,” a six and a half foot tall crossdressing man.

Goth Cruise covers interesting subject matter, but it seems shortsighted at times. It essentially breaks “goth” down into two very simplistic factors: fashion and music. Although possibly true to a degree, the idea stands in stark contrast with the numerous testimonials about how goths form one of the most diverse and accepting subcultures. Pigeonholing what it is to be goth into just fashion and music places is limiting and stifling.

The film takes jaunts all over the Gothic world, from the famous store Trash and Vaudeville in New York to the Whitney Goth Weekend in the United Kingdom. It seems to cover all things loosely related to goth for an overarching view, but to my dismay, the view of what it means goth is largely aesthetic in this film. It is only 3/4 into the film that the film really delves into something deeper than aesthetics, and, for instance, gets into how being goth affects the life of a goth in the workplace.

But any goth documentary can talk about these things. For a documentary about Goth Gruise, what I wanted to see was what life on the actual cruise was like. I really wanted to see how other cruise patrons interacted with the gothic cruise patrons. I wanted to see the opinions of elderly individuals who probably had never met a goth person in their life. Gothic Cruise was nearly completely lacking in this regard. They focused on the Gothic cruisegoers alone, with no more but a couple short snippets of misjudgments cruisegoers had about goths.

Goth Cruise is for those who are in fact interested in all things about the goth subculture. It won’t necessarily teach you anything new, but you will get an intimate look on a small subsection of the goth population.

The boys line up for their morning exercises.

Alone in Four Walls is a beautifully-shot look at youths who spend their time in reformatory facilities for youngsters between the ages up to the age of the fourteen. Husband and wife duo Alexandra Westmeier and Inigo Westmeier have managed to capture the stories of a population largely unknown to the world. Most of the boys in the film are from rural areas of Russia, and most of them are in the reformatory prison due to theft; a couple are murderers and rapists (although the rapists largely declined to participate in the film).

The facility the boys are at is practically a school. They are given hot meals, classes to take, and books to read. For some, the facility is a luxury that offers regular meals and a more stable life; Despite being forced to do occasional chores and missing their families, the boys enjoy comraderie with those their age and have no real worries. There seem to be no huge disciplinary problems, and almost everyone seems more content than discontent.

About eight boys are featured closely in the film, with each of them revealing varying degrees of information about their lives in the prison and prior to the prison. However, the film primarily focuses on Tolya, a good-looking and seemingly very intelligent fourteen year old who was put in the prison at the age of thirteen for murder. His counterpart to the murder, who was sixteen, was given twice the sentence, at an adult facility.

There is no denying that this film is powerful, but there were many things that the film only loosely touched on. As powerful as it was already, it could have been more powerful.

During the Q&A after the film, the audience raised many questions with regards to where the boys were from, how they fared afterwards, what the areas they came like were from, etc. Although the filmmakers did visit the families and neighborhoods of some of the boys, causation was a factor that was largely ignored. It was somewhat implied, but not enough. There were a few statements by boys who said they had to steal to buy clothes or food for themselves, but for the large part, the film left you wondering why those boys were in there in the first place. For those of us who are not as familiar with Russia as the filmmakers are, many questions seemed unanswered (although to a Russian, the answers would surely be obvious).

In some ways, it is hurtful of the film to place so much emphasis on Tolya. Tolya seems to stand out as a logical, peaceful kid, despite his history of murder. The fact that he has a tense relationship with his father who will not return his letters — and who later kicked Tolya out of the house, according to Westmeier — makes it all the more obvious just how little we know about the boys.

The last statistic of the film revealed that 91% of the boys who went to those reformatory facilities would not reform and would later find themselves in adult facilities, where they would face harsher conditions and harsher sentences. This disturbing statistic was yet another reminder that this film gives us a view inside the lives of these boys, but fails to answer why the boys would keep committing crimes, especially when they seem generally well-adjusted.

Director:
Alexandra Westmeier

Producer:
Alexandra Westmeier, Inigo Westmeier

Editor:
Alexandra Westmeier

Screenwriter:
Titus Maderlechner

Cinematographer:
Inigo Westmeier